• Home
  • Blog
  • Contact
The Screaming Moderate

The alt-president unhinged

8/16/2017

2 Comments

 
Yesterday we witnessed President Trump not just unplugged but unhinged.

He fully demonstrated that he is the alt-President.

I have seen, covered as a reporter or helped plan as a political media advisor and public affairs consultant hundreds of press conferences in my life, but as I watched Trump’s performance yesterday my jaw just kept dropping. This was the real Trump and there is no unseeing it.

A return to the TelePrompTer for his next performance doesn’t change what we all saw yesterday as he was flanked not just by a few Cabinet members but by his golden elevators in the lobby of Trump Tower.

Anchors on news networks from MSNBC to Fox were dumb-founded. Trump’s new chief-of-staff watched the news conference from the sidelines by looking mostly at the floor, his arms crossed, his body language clear. Senators, congressman, corporate leaders and others, Republicans and Democrats, put out statements distancing themselves from him.

The only support I saw in the media came from David Duke, the one-time grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and attendee of Saturday’s protest in Charlottesville, who thanked the President for his comments. Repeat, a lifetime self-proclaimed bigot supported the President of the United States' comments.

I was head of communications at the Republican National Committee 30 years ago when the decision was made by then-Chairman the late Lee Atwater and President Bush 41 to ostracize Duke who was in his prime then and talking as if he were a Republican. That did not stand with President Bush or Atwater.

Trump yesterday gave Duke a chance at a second prime.

 I don’t want to overstate this, and I don’t think I am, but as a Jew, for the first time in my life, I felt threatened in my own country. I communicated with a friend who is not white yesterday and said both our peoples should be very scared. I live in a pristine little town and the alt-right protests aren’t likely to reach me but we also live about an hour from Boston where similar protests are being rumored this weekend.

 These Sieg Heil-saluting racists don't even wear their hoods anymore, proud to be seen and identified as bigots.

And, I realized that also for the first time in my life, the President of the United States does not have my back.

Some say Cabinet members and Trump staff should resign after witnessing his rant yesterday. Maybe. But I worry about who he would choose to replace those people. While David Duke has no chance of being confirmed by the Senate, there is no confirmation necessary for the White House staff.

As Trump settles further into the comfort of his base’s arms, and he is attacked by nearly everyone else in public life, his base instincts tell me he’d think, “What the hell” and appoint the David Dukes of the world to key positions.

An overreach? After yesterday’s press conference, I don’t think so.

 

2 Comments
Naomi Kochen
8/16/2017 07:44:27 am

Although I read your blog regularly, this is the first time I am actually replying. As a Jew, I too feel threatened for the first time in my own country. But, I also agree that staff members in the White House or Cabinet members should not resign in protest because Trump might then fill those positions with more frightening individuals! I feel the strong need to get more involved than I have been in the past. I don't want to keep my head buried in the sand!

Reply
Jeanne Ryder
8/19/2017 05:20:50 am

OK my fellow Americans, it is time for all of you to stop being paralyzed by panic and to take control again. Google the Twenty-fifth Amendment, please. We need those cabinet members, and it was obvious on Tuesday that Gen. Kelly could gladly lead this group in declaring the President incapable of fulfilling his duties as President. They must curtail their summer holidays and send the required letter to the President Pro Tem of the Senate and the Speaker of the House expressing what they now know to be true: this President is incapable of carrying out his duties to the country and even though I and many Americans will grit our teeth, they must demand that Vice President Pence be named acting President.

As much as I disagree with Mr. Pence's many opinions on many questions, he has at least shown much more consistent ability to deal rationally with the other branches of government. Then Congress by two-thirds vote declares the President unable to fulfill the job and that the Vice President is the Acting President. The machine of American Government is paralyzed and that situation cannot continue any longer.

This seems to be the legal course left open to the country until Congress either votes on Articles of Impeachment already proposed by a couple of members of Congress, or we await Mr. Mueller's report, which is very likely to result in criminal prosecution of the President on several counts.

The Congress must act quickly to ensure continued functioning of the Executive Branch even while the public must be patient—Hamlet was right about "the Law's Delay." Damn the TV and their pressures for a quick result. I and many others want an absolutely iron-clad, inarguable, unassailable legal case that no amount of lawyers, not even Cicero himself, will be able to deny. The evidence must be so clear that nobody except partisans and lunatics will try to find its flaws. That takes time, Mueller has assembled an all-star team of investigators and prosecutors, so we must wait.

Meanwhile there is more than enough reason for Congress to, for once, put the country's needs above their own, return to work, and solve this crisis NOW. The world is watching and wondering; our enemies are laughing while they hatch how our chaos will benefit them, and the danger grows, as we saw last weekend.

Enough fiddling and diddling, Congress and the Cabinet must act. That's what they are there for and there's been too much wasting of time. Those of us who watched Mr. Trump's "adventures" through the '70s, '80s, '90s, '00s, knew long ago he is a reprehensible human shell. Now many more people know. Great. Let's act upon the knowledge the way the Founders envisioned.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

     
    Follow @bjaycooper

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

powered by bjaycooper.com